


The Decision

by stefanie_bean



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, F/M, Gen, Infertility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:19:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stefanie_bean/pseuds/stefanie_bean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petunia Dursley comes to a critical cross-road. Written for a Petunia/Vernon drabble prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Decision

Petunia Dursley and her husband Vernon sat in twin Queen Anne-style upholstered chairs in front the doctor's polished mahogany desk. Petunia hated how the doctor interrupted his words with little coughs, ahems, and hesitations, and how he refused to meet her or Vernon's eyes.

"Mrs. Dursley, you have to understand ... in cases such as yours, where there seems to be no obvious cause ... well, there is very little we can do. As you know, we have tried the ... insemination methods, which are at the limit of clinical treatments right now ..."

Petunia didn't have to look at Vernon's face to see him redden. He shifted his big body in embarrassment as the doctor droned on.

"There are reports of new experimental techniques being developed in Edinburgh ... highly controversial and there's no guarantee of success ... I could write to apply for your inclusion in a trial ..."

She could take it no more. "Thank you," she said as she sprung to her feet, straight and lean, full of anger and despair. "We've all tried over these past two years, haven't we?" She turned to her husband, already struggling to pull himself out of the deep leather chair. "Vernon, I want to go home now."

Her husband shot the doctor a look of hate. Petunia was about to cry; Vernon could tell, and he wouldn't stand for that. There had been too many tears. When he gripped her elbow to guide her out the door, she stiffened, and he hated that, too. 

He sighed heavily as the heavy oak door clicked shut behind them, closing on all the humiliations of that office. Petunia's pain from the constant examinations and probings. Her thin arms black and blue from blood drawings, her slim flanks swollen and tender from numerous injections. The shame of that closed-in little room where he sat chilly and alone, trying not to see the look on the nurse's face when she handed him a cup and a stack of magazines. His occasional failures because what he wanted was Petunia, only her, not some pumped-up, glossy tabloid tart.

Petunia wouldn't look at her husband as he helped her into the car, for her thoughts were elsewhere. As Vernon drove at a snail's pace through the congested London streets, an idea stabbed her as painfully as the doctor's probes, too strong to ignore. What she was thinking was unconscionable, horrible, but the thought wouldn't stay down. How could she even consider it? Then she imagined a baby in her arms, the smile on Vernon's face, the sum of their hopes paid into their account of sorrow at last.

She knew where to find them. Lily had shown her years before, when she still bragged to Petunia about her new knowledge, her new life, before she shut up about it entirely in front of her sister. It had been years, but Petunia was certain the old pub was still there, its weathered half-timbered front looking to all the world as an abandoned building. 

They could help her, possibly, with their spells and their charms and their freakish ways. And Vernon need never know.


End file.
